


The Inbetween

by distrusterofgazebos



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bike, Bisexual Eddie Kaspbrak, Confessions, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak-centric, First Kiss, Fix-It, Gay Richie Tozier, Like, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Canon, Reddie, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Stenbrough, Teen Romance, benverly - Freeform, stanpat - Freeform, this is between the two movies and after the second
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23225836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distrusterofgazebos/pseuds/distrusterofgazebos
Summary: What happened after the first movie, and before the second?What if Eddie and Richie fell in love, and never left the other behind? What does that mean for the future- in Derry?A fix-it.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	The Inbetween

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you like this story! I've planned it for a while.
> 
> TW: homophobia, internalized homophobia

“Eddie?”

His head shot up from where he was walking up the path towards town, holding his hand which he’d wrapped in tight gauze. 

Richie was running up towards him with a grin. “Walk you home?”

“What?” Eddie asked in surprise.

Richie offered him his arm, waiting for Eddie to link up. When the smaller boy didn’t, Richie intertwined their arms on his own accord and grinned. “Right, well,” he started in his terrible British Voice. Eddie was convinced Richie had never actually heard a British accent before in his life. “Tally-ho, old chap!”

Eddie giggled despite himself. “You’re an idiot.”

Richie gaped at him in mock offense. “My dear Kaspbrak!”

Eddie snorted. “Shut up.”

Richie squeezed Eddie’s arm tighter. Lucky for him, it wasn’t his broken arm, or Eddie would have attacked the other by now. “Never, my good sir!”

Eddie wished that he would stop smiling at each of Richie’s dumb jokes in his accent. “I’m going to walk without you,” he threatened, starting to disentangle his arm.

“Noo!” Richie immediately whined, dropping the voice and immediately latching onto Eddie’s hand. “Don’t leave me, Eddie Spaghetti!”

Eddie had a thousand replies saved in his head for exactly this situation (Richie’s stupid nicknames), but each of them went flying out the window as soon as he realized Richie was holding his hand. His brain was short circuiting, just like how it had when he’d hugged Richie before leaving the circle of Losers. He settled on scowling, hoping Richie wouldn’t question it.

Richie did not question it. Instead, he swung their joined hands and chattered into the silence- babbling about going to sneak into Bev’s tonight to see each her before she left (he stubbornly refused to call it a goodbye), stealing a few of Ben’s tapes to turn into mixtapes for Eddie’s mom, and wondering if Mike would notice if he pocketed a chicken from his farm. When Eddie asked how the fuck Richie would pocket a chicken, Richie just looked at him and winked. Eddie looked away, cheeks a furious pink.

They soon reached the outskirts of town, and Richie let go of Eddie’s hand. He played it off- in fact, he didn’t mention it at all. Richie just let go of Eddie’s hand to run down the street and grab a quarter from the pavement, holding it up for Eddie to see eagerly. Eddie laughed and shook his head, holding his cast carefully to his chest. Not mentioning the hand holding. No matter how platonic it was intentioned to be, two boys holding hands in Derry was, well… yeah. Richie’s parents, Maggie and Wentworth, would be fine with it- not that Eddie had asked- but if word got to Eddie’s mom?

She was already not Richie’s biggest fan, no matter what Richie said.

If word got to Sonia Kaspbrak that her son had been spotted holding hands with his male best friend outside of town, Eddie would be locked in his room for seven years with no hope of outside contact.

She would most likely kill Richie.

So it was most likely for the best that Richie had dropped his hand, subconsciously or not. 

At least, Eddie was telling himself that. 

He caught up to Richie, who was inspecting his quarter proudly. “1958!” He announced. “Not too shabby, eh, Spaghetti?”

“Don’t call me Spaghetti,” Eddie snapped, trying to wipe the grin off his face.

“Sorry, Spaghetti.” Richie looked up at the houses around them, slowly to a stop. “So, my dear, this is where we part.” Insert British Voice. “I shall be thinking of you, even miles apart.”

“That was an awful rhyme,” Eddie said, eyes caught on his house in dread. “Also your house is three blocks away, dipshit.”

Richie clutched his chest. “You wound me, Sir Spaghetti!” 

Eddie rolled his eyes and stepped onto the stairs leading to his porch. “Bye, Rich.”

“Bye, Eds!” Richie said with a grin, skipping off down the sidewalk, ignoring the loudly shouted, “Don’t call me Eds!”  
Once Richie had disappeared, turned around the block, and Eddie’s heart had stopped racing, he dug his key from his fanny pack and let himself in, locking the door carefully behind him.

“Eddie-bear?” His mom called from the living room. “Is that you?”

Eddie slowly walked into view, standing in the hall where Sonia could see him from her place on her recliner. “Hi Mommy.”

“How was your day?” She asked, beckoning him closer. 

“It was okay-” he started. 

“What is that?” She snapped, pointing to the gauze wrapped around his palm.

“W-what?” He asked carefully, pretending to have no idea what she was talking about.

“Did you hurt your hand, sweetheart?” She grasped his wrist and pulled him closer, removing the gauze to reveal the large slice Bill had made on his palm earlier in the afternoon. It had stopped bleeding, but was now an angry red that stung in the air. 

Well, he couldn’t ignore it now.

“Did one of them hurt you?” She asked incredulously. “I knew those boys were too wild, and that  _ girl _ -”

“They’re not wild!” Eddie quickly protested, trying to pull his hand back against his chest. “And Beverly is my friend!”

“She doesn’t want friendship from you, Eddie-bear,” Sonia snapped, her tight grip on Eddie hardening. “Now, tell me how you got this cut.”

“I tripped!” He exclaimed wildly. “I tripped in the Barrens, and there was a broken bottle, and the glass cut me. Stan wrapped it for me!”

Sonia paused. Stan was her favorite of the Losers- she believed him to be the most reasonable and mature. If Eddie was going to lie, he knew to always include Stan in it.

“Eddie-Bear, I don’t think you should continue hanging out with them.”

“Well,” he said carefully, “I think I should. They’re my friends, Mommy.”

She furrowed her brow, pausing. Considering. Eventually, she seemed to give up on the argument, deeming it a lost cause. “Are you hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Let’s have dinner.” She stood and made her way to the kitchen, leaving Eddie standing very still in front of her now empty recliner. He turned slowly to face the TV, the familiar Derry programming playing as simple background noise.

Once or twice over the past week, Eddie could have sworn he’d seen a familiar ghostly white face mixed in with the children’s chorus of the show, but now that he was staring at the program head on, he realized the group was just that- a group of kids. A group of kids-

Eddie blanched.

Holy shit. 

Right there, in the bottom front row- that was Betty Ripsom. In the corner, Daniel Yates. And front and center?

_ Oh no _ .

Georgie sat with a large smile decorating his face, staring straight at Eddie. Eddie recognized the smile from when he would be at Bill’s to avoid his mother, and would hang out with the Denboroughs in their backyard. He and Bill would be pushing Georgie on the swing, and Georgie would just be laughing like the happiest kid in the world- a look Eddie seldom recognized.

Georgie had that same look now as he beamed through the TV, making Eddie’s skin crawl. 

He scrambled for the remote and turned off the TV, pausing for a moment to try and calm himself. He switched the TV back on again, praying for different results.

Georgie’s large smile stared right back at him.

Eddie wanted to cry as he turned the TV back off, not being able to look at the sight anymore. Bill of course had the right to be the most broken up over Georgie’s death, but that didn’t change the fact that Eddie had known Georgie since the kid was born. Ever since Georgie had gone missing, Eddie’s anxiety was worse. He was refilling his inhaler twice as often, visiting the nurse during more classes, crying in his bed almost every night. He was scared. Scared for Georgie, scared for Bill, scared for every kid in the goddamn town. But most of all, Eddie was scared for himself. His nerves were everywhere, all the time.

That had to be the explanation for this, right? His nerves were shot. They had fought a fucking killer clown in the sewers. They’d seen a pile of floating dead children. They made a  _ blood oath _ . Eddie’s summer had gone off the rails- no, more like Eddie’s summer had just exploded. This was the most terrifying and bizarre experience of his life. That’s why he was hallucinating Georgie on his TV screen. That had to be it. It had to be. 

“Eddie?” His mom called from the kitchen, looking into the living room. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah.” He set the remote down and gripped his cast, trying to calm his heart that was stuttering worse than Bill. “Fine.”

“Dinner is ready. Wash your hands.”

Eddie stood in the bathroom, washing his hands. Cleaning the still fresh cut on his palm. Trying to get every bit of dried blood out from between his fingers and off his cast. A tear dripped from his eye and into the sink, and Eddie only continued to scrub it off his hands. All he could see was Georgie on the TV, laughing and grinning like he was never dragged into a drain to be murdered. Like his death hadn’t been driving Bill mad for months. Like Eddie wasn’t haunted by a seven year old ghost.

His mom knocked on the door. “Eddie-bear? You’ve been in there for ten minutes.”

“I’ll be done in a second!” He called, shutting off the faucet and watching the water drip down the drain. It’d been clear of blood for eight minutes. But watching the clean water disappear, soaking away, Eddie had never felt dirtier. He felt like he was underneath Neibolt again, feeling the greywater engulf him. Watching as his friends were hurt. Feeling helpless.

He dried his hands off. 

He was dirty.

Eddie opened the door and smiled weakly at Sonia. “Dinner?”

“Salad and pasta.” She sat at the table, and Eddie dutifully took his seat across from her. Sonia gave him a large smile and he tried to return it. No matter how shakily.

“How does your arm feel?” She asked delicately.

“Fine,” Eddie said, looking down at his plate and picking at his food. 

“Have you been taking your painkillers?”

He nodded.

She stared at his cast. “You never told me who wrote that word on your arm.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I don’t think that’s true, sweetie. Who wrote that awful thing?”  
“It doesn’t matter, Mommy, okay?” He looked up at her, stuffing a bite of salad into his mouth. She was aiming a very specific look at him- one of both pity and sickly sweetness. 

“If someone is bullying you, I would like to know.” 

“No one’s bullying me!” Well- technically true, given what happened to Bowers-

She quieted. Maybe she’d given up.

“Did you hear about the murder at Officer Bowers’?”

“What?” Eddie asked, head shooting straight up.

“They’re saying his son killed him. Henry? Doesn’t he go to your school?”

He nodded dumbly. 

Sonia clicked her tongue. “It’s a shame.”

“Y-yeah.” 

She looked at him with sharp eyes. “You’re not eating your salad, sweetheart. It’s good for you. It’s important that you eat it.”

Eddie made eye contact with her, very slowly taking a bit of his salad. Exaggerating, just for the sake of it. Waiting for a reaction.

“Eddie, what has gotten into you?”

“What?”

“Why are you acting like this?” She asked, slamming her hand on the table and staring at him with anger. He scooted back in his chair, frightened. She normally never raised her voice like this to him- always sickly sweet, replacing yells with icy cold murmurs. And she never hit anything around him. She was never aggressive like that to him.

“W-what do you mean?”

“Are you trying to anger me?!” She loomed over the table, loomed over  _ him _ \- “First you leave this house without my permission, leaving me alone to fend for myself, and return a day later, covered in dirt and mud and germs?? Today you come home with your hand hurt, and you won’t tell me why? You won’t tell me why you’re hurt, you won’t tell me why you were gone, you won’t tell me who did this to you-” she gestured to his cast, causing Eddie to pull his arm against his chest. “You don’t tell me anything! You just try to anger me!” She stood up, slowly rounding the table. Eddie scrambled to his feet, trying to keep the table between him and his mother.

“Do you want to see me upset?” She whispered lowly, voice shaky.

“N-n-” Bill’s fucking stutter was infectious. 

“Do you want to leave me?” She asked, still slowly walking around the table as Eddie continuously moved away from her. “Do you want to see me alone, Eddie? Do you want me to suffer and get sick and die, all alone because you left me?”

Eddie shook his head wildly. “N-no, Mommy-”

“Are you going to leave me for that  _ dirty  _ Tozier boy?” She spat, face contorted in anger. Eddie was full on trembling now, terrified. “Oh yes, I see you too. Walking with you every day.” She leaned over the table, closer to him, and Eddie pressed himself against the wall in terror. “Madeline Jones saw you two holding hands a few days ago.”

Eddie’s eyes widened.  _ Shit _ . When Eddie had been telling Richie in the few hours he’d earned with the other boy by sneaking out of the house how scared he was of his mother. When Richie had taken his hand gently and reassured him that in five years, they’d both be out of Derry. Out of Derry and away, far away, where they could go to college and get jobs and be free. Eddie had squeezed his hand with a soft smile and thanked him. 

“He’s giving you his germs, Eddie,” she hissed, tongue slicked in venom. “He’s spreading his dirty sickness to you-”

“What sickness, Mom?” Eddie snapped broken-heartedly. “What sickness is he giving me?!”

“ _ Homosexuality _ , Eddie!” Sonia shrieked shrilly. “The dirty gays and their sickness-”

“Richie isn’t gay,” Eddie protested quietly. His mind flickered to late nights of him and Richie under Richie’s covers, reading comic books. Richie whispering something in Eddie’s ear, voice laced in fear- “ _ I think I might like boys _ ” and trembling in a way that Eddie had never seen before.

“He wants to make you one of them-”

Eddie taking his hand and squeezing it- a soft  _ “It doesn’t matter to me, Rich _ ”-

“Shut up!” Eddie snapped, kicking the table. It hurt his foot desperately, but he savored the look of horror and surprise decorating his mother’s face. “Just-  _ Shut up _ !”

“Eddie!” His mother gaped. “What-”

“You can’t talk about Richie like that!” He screamed at her. “So what if he happens to be gay?! YOU DON’T GET TO CALL HIM SICK!”

Sonia’s face was hardening, sharp lines furrowing through her brow. “You don’t get to speak to me like that,” she murmured slowly.

He stared up at her furiously. “I. Don’t. Care.” And with that he stormed past her, up that stairs, and into his room. With a slam of the door behind him, he sank to the ground, yanking his inhaler from his fanny pack and taking a few desperate hits. 

Eddie’s immediate thought was of Richie. He needed to get to Richie.

He stood and scrambled over to his closet, grabbing various shirts and shorts and throwing them onto his pristinely made bed. He stuffed them into his backpack, and looked at the collection of pills in his fanny pack.

**Gazebos.**

He dumped the pills onto the carpet, relishing in the sight of the multi-colored capsules bouncing and rolling in various directions. It gave him an immense sense of satisfaction, watching the pills disappear under his bed and desk. Made him feel… powerful.

Eddie grasped his inhaler in his hand, rubbing his thumb over the smooth plastic and examining the trigger. He imagined dropping it just like the pills, watching it bump on the ground and tumble. 

He wasn’t that powerful.

He stuffed it in the front packet of his backpack, and unclipped his fanny pack, setting it to rest on his nightstand.

Eddie leaned against the door, listening to the few sounds that made their way upstairs.

The TV was on, judging by the muffled voices, and a slow scraping that was most likely his mother moving the table back from where he’d jostled it with his kick. He heard no moves being made to come upstairs to speak to him- a first. Normally Sonia would already be trying to bust his door down. She must have sensed the same thing that he did- this fight was different.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and tentatively walked over to the window, sliding the glass open. Two stories up- about twelve feet-

He would probably break the rest of his limbs if he fell.

Yet, Richie, the gangly dumbass of a kid was able to scale his house no problem just so he could slip into Eddie’s room practically every other night. The only difference was that Eddie had a broken arm…

Right?

Eddie slowly stuck one leg onto the small roof below his window, focusing on the trellis below it. He could easily climb down that. He just needed to slide over a few feet….

He sucked in a breath. He needed his inhaler-

No, no! He could do this! He helped kill a fucking killer clown, dammit! He moved his other leg too, now properly sitting on his windowsill with both legs out of his house. He took a deep breath, gripped the top of the window with his good hand, and stood.

Miraculously? Eddie didn’t fall.

His legs shook as he gripped the side of his house, slowly and deliberately inching towards the trellis. It felt like his heart stopped as he moved, his breath slowing, though he didn’t know if the latter was from fear or asthma. 

After what felt like forever, he reached the edge of the roof. He slipped his feet into the squares on the trellis and began to climb down, a lot more graceful than his roof-walking was. Quickly he was back on the ground, reaching into his backpack to grab his inhaler and take a few puffs.

Sonia hadn’t begun screaming from his open window yet, so he assumed she hadn’t discovered he’d left yet. Good.

With one look towards his front door, he set off towards Richie’s house.

  
  
  


“Eddie Spaghetti!” Richie crowed, swinging the door open. “Now, what can I-” he stopped. “Wait, Eds, where’s your fanny pack?” He looked at Eddie’s backpack, and then back to his face. “What happened?”

“We got into a fight,” Eddie said bitterly. “A-a really bad one.”

“Shit, Eddie, I’m sorry-” Richie ushered him inside. “Uh, my parents are working- do you want lunch? I was going to microwave some mac and cheese, but if you want something-”

“Mac and cheese sounds good,” Eddie said quickly, smiling softly at him. 

Richie seemed to calm slightly, return to his normal self, and nodded. “Right! Pip pip and tally-ho my good sir!”

“Beep beep Richie.” Eddie followed him to the kitchen and swung to sit on the counter, knowing that Mrs. Tozier cleaned daily. He’d been there when he was eight, having his first sleepover at Richie’s, and his mother had stayed for an hour to question Mrs. Tozier on her cleaning habits before leaving Eddie.

Richie scooped some mac and cheese from a tin in the fridge into two bowls, not saying anything. Eddie could tell he didn’t know what to say. To be honest, Eddie didn’t know what to say either.  _ Hey, can I stay here for a bit? _

“Do you want to stay here for a bit?”

“What?”  _ Holy shit _ .

“I mean,” Richie scratched the back of his neck, pointedly not looking at Eddie as he put the two bowls in the microwave and set the timer. “I just figured- since it was a bad fight…” he gestured to the backpack Eddie was holding in his lap. “Maybe you could stay for a few days? I mean, only if you want to, of course, but my parents love you so it would be fine-”

Eddie grinned. “Yeah. Yeah, thank you, Rich.”

Richie looked at him, beaming. “No prob, Eddie Spaghetti!” He opened the microwave, dug out two forks from a drawer, and offered him a bowl of mac and cheese. Eddie took it gratefully, snatching a fork and starting to eat the food.

“Slow down there, Eds.” Richie sat next to him, watching Eddie’s movements. “You don’t want to, like, choke-”

Eddie looked at him in surprise, the sheer shock of that statement enough to make him set down the bowl. “Wait… you’re lecturing me on health?”

Richie’s eyes widened. “Holy  _ shit _ , I am!”

Eddie shook his head. “No, go back to normal. I don’t like this.”

“Don’t like what, Dr. K? Me being the one with the PhD around here?” Richie grinned. “How the tables have turned, Spaghetti! Guess you’re the trashmouth now, eh?”

“Shut up Richie!” Eddie said furiously. “You don’t even know the difference between pneumonia and bronchitis!”

“...Am I supposed to?”

Satisfied with that answer, Eddie returned to his food. After a moment, Richie did the same, and the room fell into the comfortable silence Eddie and Richie could only find in each other.

“What was the fight about?” Richie asked quietly.

Eddie picked at the last pieces of macaroni. “She says I’ve been acting differently.”

Richie snorted. “I guess killing a fucking murder clown will do that to someone.”

Eddie hit him, though not hard. “Thanks, asshole. But yeah. And… you came up.”

“Course I did,” Richie teased, though Eddie could see the worry and fear in his eyes. “It’s hard for Mrs. K to not talk about me, if you know what I-”

“Someone saw us holding hands, Richie.” Eddie said quietly. 

Richie went silent.

“Someone saw us and told her- and- and she thinks you’re spreading some fucking  _ gay disease _ to me, and-”

“Am I?” Richie asked quietly.

“What?”  
“Am I spreading some fucking gay disease to you, Eddie?” Eddie looked over at Richie, seeing the tears in the other boy’s eyes.

“Richie, of  _ course  _ not-”

“Because I hear what they say about gays around here!” Richie exclaimed, slamming his bowl on the counter and sliding onto the ground. Eddie just gaped, watching Richie. “That we’re-we’re  _ unnatural _ , or some shit, or that we’re going to hell-”

“That’s not true-”

“Am I dirty for this?” Richie asked, whirling to face Eddie as tears poured down his face. 

“Why-”

“Your mom calls me ‘The Dirty Tozier Boy’,” Richie spat. The first time he’d ever mentioned Eddie’s mom without her being a punchline. “So- so- am I?” He stared at Eddie, and Eddie was punched in the gut with just how lost Richie looked. Lost and hopeless. “Because I don’t want to lose you, Eds, because of my germs-”

Eddie slipped down from the countertop and wrapped Richie in a hug, standing on his tiptoes to rest his chin on Richie’s shoulder.

Richie stood motionless for a moment before returning the hug, squeezing Eddie like his life fucking depended on it.

"You're not dirty," Eddie whispered.

"Really?" Richie asked weakly, voice cracking.

“Absolutely not.” Eddie pulled back to look Richie head-on, smiling softly. “You’re my best friend. You don’t have a disease.”

Richie took a shaky breath, smiling at Eddie slowly. “Thank you.”

“Of course, ‘Chee.” Eddie pulled away. “Want to watch Star Wars?”

“Of fucking course!” Richie eagerly bounded to the basement with shouts of which episode to watch. Eddie laughed and followed, heart feeling just a bit lighter.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the first chapter!!


End file.
